Where I am sat in Caracas, Venezuela the frenzy of blogging and news updates about Guild Wars 2 seems a distant storm. I’ve had little free time to read blogs or news but have read what I can. Also my boxed set of GW2 is sat at home waiting for me to get back to give it a whirl.
My ‘better late than never’ first impressions will follow this weekend. In the meantime I have been reading the latest on The Secret World post-launch situation. Given that Conan had a savaging post launch for the lack of late-game content, yet the game has been significantly expanded and has a well established playerbase, I expect the developers could keep the game going despite the disappointing initial sales.
Comments from the developers though on the reasons for its poor performance are disingenuous. How could any games developer not consider the current and probable competition when launching a game? Surely this is key to marketing the game?
As for the comment:
“Diablo 3 and GW2 especially have gained more traction and momentum than expected,”
I find that completely laughable as a statement to make to any journalist. Now of course it could be just spin at the end of the day, but this year has proved that development companies do not seem to have a very good handle on the market or their competition at present – maybe the market is just too chaotic?
I started my Gw2 experience two days ago, because I had to wait for the physical copy to arrive. The best you can do is to do something equally important thing until you can play, like sleeping. The lack of proper rest is guaranteed when gou finally lay your hands on the game.
As about the second part: I think expectations were based on the succes of the secret war, and the whole marketing campaign. That quote is indeed infantile.